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Work planned at Cold Shivers Point

Visitors to Colorado National Monument have held their breath and peered over the massive cliff faces at Cold Shivers Point since the early 1900s. But repairs planned for the overlook between Monday and Nov. 5 will keep people confined to the roadway and the nearby parking area, according to monument officials.

Work crews will replace the railings, which were originally installed in 1964, and resurface the concrete at the overlook. The parking area will remain open during the project, and traffic won’t be affected along Rim Rock Drive while the work is ongoing.

The popular and wheelchair-accessible overlook is often the first stop for folks who enter the monument from the eastern Grand Junction portal. The next overlook opportunity for visitors traveling westward is Red Canyon Overlook.

Cold Shivers was officially designated an overlook in 1938, when Rim Rock Drive was under construction by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration.

But Briana Board, an education ranger at the monument, points out that the original road — Serpents Trail, which dates to the early-1900s — travels in close proximity to the Cold Shivers area.

Board said that workers will be doing the repairs “a little bit at a time,” working within the existing footprint at the overlook. The current railings will be replaced with a more modern, square-grid design similar to what was previously done at the Fruita Canyon Overlook. The new railings will have a different size and height, Board said.

She said money for the repairs is coming directly from entrance fees, “so it’s really visitor fee dollars at work” with the project.